Gull Lake's Mackenzie Latt drives against the defense of Marshall's Nikki Tucker (23) and Tierra Orban during Friday night's SMAC East Division game. Latt had 18 points to lead the Blue Devils to a 46-33 win. (Paul Morgan / MLive.com)

RICHLAND, Mi. – Against an unbeaten team ranked sixth in the state, falling behind by seven points before two minutes had ticked off the clock isn’t a great way to start a basketball game.

That poor start by Gull Lake’s girls team turned into a great finish for the Blue Devils as they rallied to top Marshall, 46-33, Friday night in a SMAC East Division game.

It helped a lot that the Blue Devils (8-1 overall, 5-1 SMAC) had Mackenzie Latt on their side. The senior, whose family moved here from Wisconsin before the start of school this past fall, had what is being the norm for her – 18 points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots.

‘’I think I was a little bit of a mystery before, but teams are starting to know me now,’’ she said with a laugh.

With that in mind, Gull Lake coach Mike Balcom knows that others have to contribute when teams start focusing on his 6-foot, 1-inch post player. Against Marshall (10-1, 7-1), it was Morgan Nusbaum. The senior guard had 13 points, two steals and three assists. Kelsey Bauer added 10 points.

‘’Morgan has been coming around really well and I’m proud of the way she has been playing. Her leadership is wonderful.’’

Nusbaum knows how to turn around bad things and turn them into good things. She played on Gull Lake’s girls soccer team last season which won the state championship.

‘’Basketball is my first sport,’’ she said. ‘’Soccer is great, but I love basketball.’’

It didn’t look like the Blue Devils were loving basketball at the beginning of the game, though. Marshall raced out to an 8-1 lead, stealing a couple of passes in a full-court press and hitting two 3-point bombs right off the bat.

‘’They were hot and we weren’t expecting them to shoot like that,’’ Balcom said. ‘’They hadn’t shot like that all year, but I know they can do it.

‘’We weren’t in a defensive rotation to get a hand in their face, and when you leave good shooters alone, they are going to drain them.’’

‘’We made a couple of good defensive stops in a row which created some offense for us and got us some fast breaks.’’

Latt also started helping bring the ball upcourt against the press.

‘’Mackenzie Latt took over and we didn’t have an answer for that,’’ Marshall coach Sal Konkle said. ‘’We struggled to defend Mackenzie and she is an outstanding player.

‘’But when you stop outstanding players from catching the ball, they don’t score. We have to do a better job of defending against her.’’

The Redhawks did that for the first four minutes, but Latt and Bauer scored five points apiece and Nusbaum had four points in the first quarter to key the comeback. In the second quarter, Gull Lake scored the first six points - four from Latt and two from Abbey Watson – to take a 20-14 lead with 5:37 remaining in the half. Gull Lake would hold Marshall to just seven points in the second and third quarters to take a 37-21 lead after three quarters.

‘’After they knocked down five 3-pointers in the first half, we stepped out on them and corrected it in the second half,’’ Nusbaum said. ‘’It turned out pretty good for us.’’

The defense created 14 turnovers in the middle two quarters, too. In the final three quarters, Gull Lake’s defense held Marshall to 7 for 26 shooting from the field.

Marshall, which was playing without leading scorer Logan Kiessling who had her tonsils out on Friday, was led by Tierra Orban with eight points.